Children from three Yeovil schools attempt musical world record

Three Yeovil schools took part in a musical world record last Wednesday in aid of the charity SignHealth.

On February 6, Fairmead school, North Cadbury C of E Primary School and Oaklands Community Primary School joined over 1,000 schools across the country in order to take the world record for the most people singing and signing simultaneously.

Debbie Bridges, Year Two teacher at Oaklands Community Primary School, said: "Our children were fantastic – they have been rehearsing the song for five weeks and loved every minute.

"They still keep singing it in the classrooms. It was great for them to be involved in a positive learning experience like this, whilst doing something for charity.

She added: "Some of our teachers are actively involved with Somerset Total Communication so the children already know about signing, as it is something they are taught to do most days."

SignHealth is a leading national healthcare charity supporting deaf people across the UK.

Last year the charity beat this same world record with 114, 277 children taking part in this huge group sing.

They are hoping to beat this record again this year, but the schools won't know if they beat the world record until March or April 2013.

Steve Powell, Chief Executive at SignHealth, said: "Hundreds of schools from all over the country and overseas registered to take part in our Guinness World Record sign2sing project for the most people signing and singing at the same time.

"They range in size from 30 to 800 pupils, which, from our calculations, means more than 135,000 schoolchildren took part in the event. The exact number of participants will be confirmed by Guinness World Records™ at a later date.

"It has been a truly fantastic event and we're extremely grateful for everyone who took part. At the moment we're still counting the money raised but we're hoping it will make a significant contribution to the work of SignHealth."

The song sung by children across the UK was composed especially for the event and is available to be purchased from iTunes and cost 79p per download.

Mr Powell added: "We hope lots of people will download the song. It would be great to see it in the charts and get even more people talking about sign2sing."